The Cracker Project: Wheat Thins

I'll bet you thought I forgot all about my supposed Cracker Project, didn't you?  Well, honestly, I'd like to forget, but!  For some reason I feel compelled to follow through on my pointless resolutions, and anyway, it would sort of rock to actually be able to make a decent cracker.  The Goldfish from January were good, but they weren't crackers.

Well, no one said this was going to be easy.

I found this wheat-cracker recipe while stumbling around on StumbleUpon.  A quick Google search tells me that it was adapted from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking Cookbook, so I probably shouldn't post the recipe.  I don't know, copyright infringement or plagiarism or something.  So just Google "Wheat Thins Cracker Recipe" and see what comes up, okay?  I've given you plenty of clues to figure it out.

Um, so anyway, these crackers contain whole wheat flour--except I just used unbleached because my IBS is not compatible with "whole" and "wheat"--and sugar, salt, paprika, butter, water and vanilla.  Oooh, one cool thing, the recipe had me grate the butter into the flour with a cheese grater.  Worked like a CHAMP.  I might do that from now on.  Because my pastry cutter is whack, that's why.

This time I was determined to make nice, thin crackers, so I rolled the dough between two lightly floured sheets of parchment, trying to tell myself that my environmental impact would be minimal because paper is... compost-friendly?  I guess?  Seriously, I feel guilty about all that parchment.  I did get some nice thin crackers, though, I tell you what.  Dividing the dough into quarters helped, too.  Less dough to flatten or something.

And again, I am not a professional photographer and I know this looks terrible, okay?  I'm posting more for the proof of the thing.

I sprinkled the crackers with some finishing salt that I found in the bulk section of my favorite grocery store.  Made me feel all cool and awesome, mostly because I haven't really had anything to sprinkle before now.

Anyway, the dough I thought I had rolled out nice and thin was apparently not thin enough, because those crackers are a little puffy.  The crackers I knew I rolled out nice and thin LOOK LIKE CRACKERS.  Hallelujah, it's a miracle!  I almost don't even care about what they taste like.

EXCEPT!  They're actually good and crunchy.  I wonder if that's because of my super-skillz at rolling dough (cough) or the fact that I baked them 12 minutes instead of 10?  Even the puffier ones crunch.

That sort of looks like a Wheat Thin, right?

My only mistake: Between batches, I should have put the extra dough in the refrigerator.  Because when it was time to roll out my second batch, it wasn't as easy as the first time around.

Anyway, now that the crackers are out of the oven and cooled down a bit, the fam has descended upon them.  Eric says they taste just like Wheat Thins, which might be overdoing it a bit.  The girls are coming back for seconds and thirds.  Lesson learned from January: Just let them eat the crackers while they're fresh.  Because tomorrow they may be cat food.  And anyway, right now, they're good.

Yay!

The end.